My Story — The Discovery

12 posts in this series

Reading Order

1 of 12 — 8 min read

The Consultant Who Bought a Deck of Cards in a Hotel Room

I was a strategy consultant spending two hundred nights a year in hotels. One night, bored out of my mind, I bought a deck of cards online. I had no idea what I was starting.

2 of 12 — 8 min read

Two Hundred Nights a Year and Nothing to Do with My Hands

The specific kind of restlessness that comes from being a road warrior -- and how the emptiness of hotel evenings became the perfect incubator for an obsession.

3 of 12 — 8 min read

The Childhood Clown Who Almost Ruined Magic for Me Forever

A single bad experience with a loud, obnoxious performer when I was a kid in Austria gave me a prejudice against magic that lasted decades. Here's how that bias almost cost me everything.

4 of 12 — 8 min read

What It Feels Like When Everyone on YouTube Is Better Than You

I was a complete beginner watching experts perform flawless card magic on YouTube. The comparison nearly destroyed my motivation before I'd even started. Here's how I survived it.

5 of 12 — 8 min read

Why I Thought Magic Was Just for Kids (and How Wrong I Was)

For most of my adult life, I was certain that magic was a children's entertainment -- a trivial thing. Then I discovered the real world of magic and realized I'd been seeing the lowest floor of a skyscraper.

6 of 12 — 8 min read

Starting Magic as an Adult When Everyone Says It's Too Late

Everyone told me you need to start young. That the great magicians began as children. That adult beginners will never catch up. Here's why I decided they were wrong -- and what I've learned about late starts.

7 of 12 — 8 min read

My First Performance: Everything I Did Wrong in Thirty Minutes

I finally showed someone what I'd been practicing. It was thirty minutes of everything going wrong -- and the most valuable lesson I'd had since picking up a deck of cards.

8 of 12 — 7 min read

The Promise I Made to Myself That Changed Everything

After my disastrous first performance, I made a decision that reframed everything. Not a resolution, not a goal -- a structural commitment that forced me to treat this seriously.

9 of 12 — 8 min read

Down the Rabbit Hole: From Card Tricks to Obsession

What started as a hotel room fidget became a full-blown obsession. I went from learning shuffles to studying magic history back to the 1500s. Here's how the rabbit hole swallowed me whole.

10 of 12 — 8 min read

The Day I Stopped Asking Experts for Advice

I spent months asking skilled magicians how they got good. They all said the same useless things. Then I discovered that the best performers literally cannot explain what makes them great -- and that changed everything.

11 of 12 — 8 min read

What Strategy Consulting Taught Me About Learning Magic

The analytical skills my clients paid good money for -- systems thinking, pattern recognition, process optimization -- turned out to be the exact toolkit I needed to decode why some magicians improve fast and others don't.

12 of 12 — 8 min read

Meeting Adam Wilber and the Decision That Changed Everything

I invited a magician to keynote an innovation event in London. Three days later, he called me on Skype and proposed we start a magic company together. I said yes -- on one condition.